How to Return to Love (Even When you Don't Want to)

In the book a Return to Love Marianne Williamson teaches us how to recognize the true essence of love, the purity of unconditional love, and how to return to love.

The pure essence of unconditional love is best witnessed by infants and little children. They don't hold a grudge, easily forgive and they return to love always.

As we mature we become conditioned by the world around us and we lose the ability to return to love as easily. Often, we actually lose the desire to return to love. Rather than taking an action to welcome love back in, we shut down and try to convince ourselves we don't need it anyway.

A Return to love is a must read (in my opinion). A book that will warm your heart and empower you to choose love. Best of all, Marianne Williamson does a beautiful job of defining the true essence of love.

Human beings have become so accustomed to associating love to relationships. Love is most often defined an action, something you do. Love is also judged on the terms of whether it is deserved. Most of all, love is seen as something you have to give to others in limited quantities.

At its purest form love is energy. It is not based in action, it cannot be judged, and it has no end.

Many spiritual leaders and philosophers have described love as the energy that moves the universe.

If you allow yourself to believe that love is the energy of the universe, then you must also conceive that you need love to flow thru you to be at your best. To experience your authentic power, you need to feel and circulate the energy of love.

Accepting the need to love and be loved is not the problem. It only becomes a problem when we feel hurt and betrayed by others or the world in general. This is when we shut down the circulation of the energy of love within us. Marianne suggests that we shut down love, because we know our magnificent potential and that is truly what we fear.

When we shut down love, we replace it with other emotions such as fear, resentment, anger...all of which keep love away.

Returning to love when you feel betrayed, hurt, sad, lonely is a difficult task for most humans. It is something that has challenged me for years. Although, I believe in the energy of love and I subscribe to the theory that love is the language of the universe, it is still a challenge to return to love.

At times, I have by sheer will put aside my ego and focused on finding a way to return to the energy of love. Now, that does not mean that I am able to instantly forgive or forget when I am in the middle of a situation with another human. It just means that I know the power of love and I choose to return to love as fast as I possibly can.

It is the ego that opposes the circulation of love energy when it senses danger. The ego is built for survival and protection. When it perceives danger of being inferior, or being taken advantage of, or being made a fool, it stands on guard keeping you alert and ensuring you don't let others get away with hurting you.

This energy directly opposes the energy of love. In my experience, it takes an awareness of the ego, an understanding of the ego's role, and a desire to return to love to get passed this point.

In my option, returning to love is a choice. As with any choice that you make, you need to have the belief that your choice is leading you to feel better. You will only truly believe that returning to love makes you feel good, by doing it more and more.

The book A Return to Love is great reminder of the power of love. As Marianne says "learn to trust the power that holds galaxies together." There are three lessons in particular that got my attention, and I share them below with the intention that it will help you to return to love more often.

#1 Relinquish fear to know love

Love is what we were born with, fear is what we have learned from the experience of life.

“To undergo a spiritual journey is to relinquish fear and accept love back in our hearts”.

In modern society we have lost perspective on the true essence of love. Love is often confused for conditional love, a love that includes fear, manipulation and a lot of conditions. Love is pure and unconditional. Living in love, is a way of living where decisions are made from love instead of fear.

Marianne says “In every relationship, in every moment we teach each other either love or fear.”

As we demonstrate fear we learn self condemnation and we learn to feel more frighten in life instead of being in love with life.

So let's break it down...what is the meaning of fear?

• Fear is our shared lovelessness, our individual and collective hells

• Fear is expressed as anger, abuse, disease, pain, greed, addiction, selfishness, obsession, corruption, violence, and war

What is the true meaning of love?

• Love isn’t material, it’s energy

• Love is the intuitive knowledge of our hearts

• Love is within us, it cannot be destroyed, but it can be hidden

As Marianne says in the book A Return to Love “there is no fear that love cannot dissolve, the choice to love is not always easy, ego puts up terrible resistance”

#2 Surrender to love to empower yourself

Surrender is often mistaken for weakness. In fact, surrender is powerful non-resistance. If you believe in the power of love energy then surrender allows you to relax into it and trust that you can never go wrong by choosing love.

Surrender means that you accept what is now. If you are in the midst of feeling resentful, angry, betrayed...you allow yourself to feel that. You surrender to those feelings. If you do not allow those feelings to take their time to process, they will continue to dominate your energy and suppress the energy of love.

In the absence of faith we try to control what it is not our business to control and we offer up a great deal of resistance to love.

When we surrender to a higher power, to something bigger than ourselves, we stop trying to control events. In the absence of resistance, a lot more tends to just fall into natural order.

#3 To love and be loved is a primary human need

A prime directive of being human is to be loved, lovable, and to love freely. As long as you are not allowing yourself to be loved and to love freely, you will not feel at your best.

When our primal need for love is threatened by another's actions, our reaction is to take away our love and to place conditions on it.

Understanding that our need for the energy of love to circulate within us is undeniable motivates us to return to love faster and more often.

Showing up with love even when we perceive or judge that the other person that does not deserve it, is how we keep the energy love within us. It is this energy that will keep us healthy, happy and allow us to enjoy the best of life.

Loving another human unconditionally may be a tall order for most humans. We are conditioned from a young age to meet and conform to standards in order to receive love from others. It is neatly impossible to love another completely unconditionally, when we don't believe we deserve the same.

You can’t change anyone else, and you can't ignore your natural reactions. You can only choose to perceive the situation in a way that brings you to a place of peace. When we are hurt by another's actions or words, we need to forgive in order to find peace and return to love.

Have you experienced a situation that required you to return to love? What strategies did you use to get back to circulating the energy of love? Share your insights in the comment section below. If this blog resonates with you, please share it below on any of your social platforms.

Wishing you love, joy and peace,

Sandra Francisco